_Reflections on the matter contained in the last three chapters, which
will be of use to no one._
These three love-affairs, which I have related in all their details, and
possibly with indiscreet minuteness, taught me some lessons in life. I
experienced them before I had completed my twenty-second year. They
transformed me into an Argus, all vigilance in regard to the fair sex.
Meanwhile I possessed a heart in some ways differing from the ordinary;
it had suffered by the repeated discovery of faithlessness in women--how
much I will not say; it had suffered also by the brusque acts of
disengagement, which my solid, resolute, and decided nature forced upon
me. The result was that I took good care to keep myself free in the
future from any such entanglements.
I was neither voluptuous by temperament nor vicious by habit. My
reflective faculties controlled the promptings of appetite. Yet I took
pleasure in female society, finding in it an invariable source of
genuine refreshment. With the exception of some human weaknesses, of no
great moment, to which I yielded in my years of manhood, I have always
continued to be the friend and observer of women rather than their
passion-blinded lover.
The net result of my observations upon women is this. The love which
most of them pretend for men, springs mainly from their vanity or
interest. They wish to be surrounded by admirers. They are ambitious to
captivate the hearts and heads of people of importance, in order to
reign as petty queens, to take the lead, to exercise power, to levy
contributions. Or else they ensnare slaves devoted to them, free-handed
managers of theatres, men who will give them the means at balls, at
_petits soupers_, at country-houses, at great entertainments, to
eclipse their rivals, to acquire new lovers, and to betray their
faithful servant, their credulous accomplice in this game of fashion.
Again, they are sometimes spreading nets to catch a complaisant husband,
who will support them in their intrigues.
I was not born to pay court. My position in the world was not so eminent
as to secure a woman's triumph by my influence. I was neither wealthy
enough nor extravagant enough to satisfy a woman's whims in those
ridiculous displays which make her the just object of disdainful satire.
I had no inclination to ruin myself either in my fortune or in my
health. I had conceived a sublime and romantic ideal of the
possibilities of love. Matrimony was wholly alien to my views of
liberty. The consequence was that, after these three earliest
experiences, I regarded the sex with eyes of a philosopher.
I enjoyed the acquaintance of many women in private life, and of many
actresses, remarkable for charm and beauty. Holding the principles I
have described, I found them well contented with my manners of
behaviour. They showed themselves capable of honourable, grateful, and
constant friendship through a long course of years. In truth, it is in
the main to men--to men who flatter and caress the innate foibles of
women, their vanity, their tenderness, their levity, that we must
ascribe the frequency of female frailties.
In conclusion, I will lift my voice to affirm this truth about myself.
Without denying that I have yielded, now and then, but rarely, to some
trivial weakness of our human nature, I protest that I have never
corrupted a woman's thoughts with sophisms. I have never sapped the
principles of a sound education. I have never exposed the duties and
obligations of their sex to ridicule, by clothing license with the name
of liberty. I have never stigmatised the bonds of religion, the conjugal
tie, modesty, chastity, decent self-respect, with the title of
prejudice--reversing the real meaning of that word, as is the wont of
self-styled philosophers, who are a very source of infection to the age
we live in.
Here, then, I leave with you the candid and public confession of my
loves.[8] I have related the circumstances of my birth, my education, my
travels, my friendships, my engrossing occupations, my literary
quarrels, my amorous adventures. It is for you to take them as you find
them. I have written them down at the dictation of mere truth. They are
_useless_, I know, and I only _publish_ them in obedience to the virtue
of _humility_.